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UTILITY WEEK | 17TH - 23RD APRIL 2015 | 31 Community Editor: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen.bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@fav-house.com; Associate news editor: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@fav-house.com; Insights editor: Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house.com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu. dutt@fav-house.com; Reporter: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, t: 01342 332077, e: sarah.wood@fav-house. com; Publisher: Amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year, overseas £689 per year, t: 020 8955 7045 or email membership sales manager Paul Tweedale: paultweedale@fav-house.com. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham House Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1UZ 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2014 Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year. Overseas £689 per year. Email: paultweedale@fav-house.com William Marchant @richonlyinname BBC reports estimates of between 2.2bn & 100bn barrels of oil in the Weald. Which sounds like another way of saying no-one really knows. American Wind Energy @AWEA #Windpower fact of the day: U.S. inventor Charles Brush was one of the first to experi- ment with wind electric generation (in 1888!) Kary Oberbrunner @karyoberbrunner There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. - Albert Einstein, 1932 #deeperpath #limitingbeliefs Greenpeace USA @greenpeaceusa Dear Wisconsin, Just because you banned me, doesn't mean I stopped existing. Sincerely, #ClimateChange 3WhitehallPlace @3WhitehallPlace Hinkley Point C update. It is not buggered, it just looks that way. Honkley Pant C updot. It is nit boggered, it just licks that wee. George Smeeton @GSmeeton Myth that renewable energy needs 100% backup spinning all the time is "utter nonsense", says @MLiebreich Dave Sowden @dave_sowden Should we worry that @UKLabour @labourenergy has dropped the term "National Infrastructure Priority" for #energyefficiency from manifesto? EnergyBillRevolution @EnergyBillRev The UK has the worst #energyefficiency housing in Western Europe. 2m children are suffering. @energybillrev #GE2015 CCHQ Press Office @CCHQPress Miliband reminds everyone that he wrote the 2010 manifesto....they literally are the #SameOldLabour Rory Johnston @Rory_Johnston Forecasting the year peak #oil demand occurs is a pretty ambitious task. I'd say 2050 (± 30 years)... Top Tweets Disconnector Spared from Ed and a hangover As Labour casts its eye around for the next class enemy to feed into the flames to help propel it to victory at the polls, fat cats and would-be fat cats every- where (that includes you, utility chief executives) know their names are on the list. Bankers have been spared thus far, but surely their luck can't last. Thanks God for non-doms, says Disconnector. They've stepped up to the plate in the past week and taken one for the team. Energy company execu- tives in boardrooms across the country will doubtless be raising a glass to toast their new over- seas (for tax purposes) friends. And a glass of the good stuff, too, hopes the great man, although not too many, of course. Malevo- lent, rapacious energy compa- nies don't run themselves and too much red wine dulls your mental edge in the morning. But not for long, cries Discon- nector. Thanks to the latest scientific discovery, our capital- ist overlords may soon be able to quaff as many glasses of fine wine as they please without fear of a hangover. Yep, a professor of microbial genomics at the University of Illinois, Yong-Su Jin, claims to have found a way to change the way yeast reproduces. By altering its DNA, his team can increase the amount of nutritional com- ponents in the yeast while at the same time reducing the toxic byproducts that cause hangovers. Disconnector Of course, that means the resultant brew is not techni- cally wine at all, but a synthetic substitute, which apart from any- thing else has a name too long to fit on the bottle. They'll have to come up with something catchier by the time it gets to market. Tech yeah! Disconnector was intrigued to learn last week that researchers at Manchester University have at last come up with a use for graphene, the atom-thick won- der substance they first isolated in 2004, earning Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov a Nobel Prize in the process. Their product? A light bulb. Apart from being incredibly thin and as strong as steel, graphene is also a super conductor of electricity and light, so Gra- phene Lighting (a joint venture between Manchester University and Canadian investors) has manufactured a range of gra- phene LED bulbs that will go on sale later this year. The bulbs will be as energy saving as conventional LED lights but they will last for years and are dimmable. Current dim- mable LED bulbs can cost £15. Amid all the – understand- able – doom and gloom sur- rounding our appetite for energy and its consequences for climate change, it's cheering to note that whether we're talking about the generation or consumption of energy, technology is improving matters, sometimes one atom at a time. Glass full If graphene is the world's latest wonder substance, then surely the first was water. Essential to life on this planet, its physical qualities make it unique to sci- ence. And it conducts heat, too. It's this latest quality that Hungarian architect Matyas Gutai is seeking to exploit by building a house with walls and windows filled with water. The concept is to build a house using steel panels for the walls and glass panels for the windows, all filled with water so that it transfers heat effec- tively around the structure. The claim is that this keeps the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. In fact, Matyas says the system can cut 20 per cent off a home's energy bills and if com- bined with renewable energy, could take it off-grid entirely. And it's not just an unreal- ised crazy idea. He's founded a company, Allwater, to build structures using his ideas, albeit so far the company has only built what it calls a pavil- ion, which in truth is some- thing little bigger than a shed. There are unanswered questions, of course. Water conducts sound even more effectively than heat, so does that mean that if someone snores, everyone in the house will be able to hear it? And how would you hang your pictures on the wall…? Matyas is on the case and Disconnec- tor will keep you posted.